Complete Surrender

This is a translation of a scriptural meditation from the Russian book, “Day by Day”:

Scripture: “I am unworthy of all the kindness and all the blessings which You have shown Your servant” (Gen: 32,10)

Meditation:

"Not everything seems to us to be kindness now, but we will see it as such when we look back at all the storms and sorrows we have experienced, which once shattered our ship. “I am unworthy of all Your kindness”, said Jacob when he was on his way to meet Esau. But before meeting his brother he had to receive a blessing from the Lord Himself.

"The Lord met Jacob, touched him, crushed him with the power of His love and later, having blessed him, renewed and empowered him: “Your name will be Israel…and you shall overpower men” (Gen: 32, 38)

"Let the Lord do with you what He will. Give Him complete and unconditional power. Do not tell Him what to do. Be defenseless in giving yourself to Him. Tell Him fearlessly, no matter what it may cost you: “I surrender to You everything, and my whole being, completely and irrevocably!”

“The Lord is merciful and I know that He loves us so much that He cannot let us go and cannot leave us without sorrow because it draws us to Him; he cannot free us from tears because that is the water which we need to tread. Let us say, together with our Lord: “Not my will but Yours be done” (Luke: 22, 42).”


And this is what Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, Part IV, Ch. 8:

"Christ says ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’ "

Dimitry

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8)

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